| Platform economy is a new economic form with Internet platform as the main carrier.The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "we will accelerate the development of the digital economy and promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy".As an important part of digital economy,the healthy development of platform economy is an important link to accelerate the development of digital economy.At present,the number of marriage registrations in China has been declining continuously.According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2023,China’s population at the end of 2022 will decrease by850,000 compared with the end of the previous year,marking the first negative population growth since 1962.In China,there is a serious marriage crush for men,and due to multiple factors such as the epidemic,it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to find a partner of their choice,and marriage rates are gradually declining.Therefore,in today’s society,where social phobia is prevalent among young people,online dating platforms can alleviate the social anxiety of social phobics and become one of the ways to find a partner and increase the marriage rate.Compared to traditional offline models,online dating platforms have greatly improved the efficiency of user search and matching,and their market size has gradually expanded in recent years.However,the rapid growth of the platform economy has also been accompanied by certain problems,such as inappropriate pricing strategies,false information and information security issues.In summary,the bilateral market resulting from the platform economy has become an important economic phenomenon,and online dating platforms,as one of the key types of online platforms,have grown in size over time.When online dating platforms provide search and identification services,the question of how the platform should develop its service strategy and price its services becomes a key issue for the sustainability of the platform.This paper is based on Armstrong’s model under the framework of bilateral market theory,introducing new forms of utility and factors such as time loss.By constructing a full information dynamic game model,the optimal pricing and service strategy of the online dating platform is analysed with the objective of maximising the platform’s revenue.The main findings of the study are as follows:(1)When the platform only provides search services,its service strategy is affected by the combination of market structure and differences in user quality.(2)When the platform provides search service and perfect authentication service,its pricing should take into account the users’ ability to pay and adopt a complementary pricing approach.(3)When the authentication service provided by the platform is defective,the platform should use artificial intelligence and other means to improve the success rate,otherwise it will cause a greater loss of utility to high-quality users and thus lose users.(4)For potential users of the platform,they can evaluate the matching efficiency,cost and other factors,and choose to use the platform if the pricing is appropriate.At the same time,they should focus on improving themselves rather than creating a fictitious identity.The higher the "quality" of the match-seeker itself,the better the match can be found.This paper applies the two-sided market theory to the pricing and service strategy research of online dating platform,expands the research field of the two-sided market theory,enriches the research results in the pricing field of online platform,and also provides theoretical support and reference for the effective formulation of service prices and business policies of online dating platform. |
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